Customer identity and access management · November 2026 Edition
Clerk vs Keycloak
Zero of fourteen models named Clerk first on the direct prompt; zero named Keycloak. Clerk was named by ten of the fourteen models and Keycloak by ten and Clerk carries 23 labels and Keycloak 15, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in two categories this edition.
Named in five categories this edition.
First-choice share4%4%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate13%20%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#6#7A position in a field of 16; printed, not drawn.
Labels2315A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, Clerk reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Frontegg was named alongside these two in twelve of the fourteen direct answers. Auth0 vs Clerk · Auth0 vs Keycloak · WorkOS AuthKit vs Clerk
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the customer identity and access management page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
ClerkFirst choices, of fourteen modelsKeycloak
Direct00
Paraphrase00
Comparative001 against Keycloak
Budget-constrained22
Scale-constrained00
Negative003 against Clerk · 2 against Keycloak
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where Clerk and Keycloak stood in it.
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | |||||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | |||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | |||||
| Grok 4.20 | | | ||||
| Mistral Small | ||||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | |||
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | |||
| Kimi K2 | | | ||||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | ||||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | |||||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | ||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | |
Clerk Keycloak first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Clerk on the left and Keycloak on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where Clerk and Keycloak stood in it.
Neither was the first choice, one was named
1 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Gemini 3.5 FlashWorkOS AuthKit alternatives: Clerk, Descope, Frontegg, Stytch
Neither was named
13 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Claude Haiku 4.5Auth0 alternatives: Frontegg, OneLogin, The OneWelcome Identity Platform
GPT-5.4 miniAuth0 alternatives: Frontegg, Ping Identity
Perplexity SonarAuth0 alternatives: Amazon Cognito, Frontegg, FusionAuth, Microsoft Entra External ID, WorkOS AuthKit
Grok 4.20WorkOS AuthKit alternatives: Auth0, Frontegg, Stytch
Mistral SmallAuth0 alternatives: Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID
DeepSeek V4 FlashFrontegg alternatives: Descope, Kinde, WorkOS AuthKit
Llama 4 MaverickAuth0 alternatives: IBM Verify, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, WSO2 Identity Server, WorkOS AuthKit
Qwen 3.7 FlashFrontegg alternatives: Auth0, Descope, Microsoft Entra External ID, Stytch
Kimi K2WorkOS AuthKit alternatives: Frontegg, Stytch
GLM 4.7 FlashXAuth0 alternatives: Amazon Cognito, Descope, Frontegg, Microsoft Entra External ID, Ping Identity, SSOJet, Stytch, Transmit Security
MiniMax M2.5OneLogin alternatives: Frontegg, LoginRadius, SSOJet
GPT-6 LunaWorkOS AuthKit alternatives: Auth0, Stytch
Muse Glimmer 30BKinde, WorkOS AuthKit alternatives: Auth0, Frontegg, Okta, OneLogin
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
Clerk leads by twenty-three points.
Clerk23%#1 of 15Keycloak0%#14 of 15Mid-marketThe figures above
Level: the same share of first choices.
Clerk4%#6 of 16Keycloak4%#7 of 16Enterprise
Level: the same share of first choices.
Clerk0%#– of 13Keycloak0%#– of 13What the models said about Clerk
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of seven in this category shown.
“Clerk's own postmortems show that outages in one service can cascade into session-management downtime, and Clerk notes its session service incidents can cause "complete downtime" for customers.” GPT-5.4 mini · negative prompt · soft negative
“Clerk or similar developer-first tools as your only enterprise CIAM. Be cautious if you need mature consent management” Perplexity Sonar · negative prompt · soft negative
“Modern developer-first options with good UX, but verify their long-term viability and security maturity” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“Clerk has become the go-to recommendation for modern startups building web apps” Qwen 3.7 Flash · budget prompt · first choice
“Best Overall Value: Clerk” Kimi K2 · budget prompt · first choice
“Developer‑centric teams building modern consumer apps favor Auth0, Clerk, Supabase Auth, Firebase Auth, Descope, Frontegg” GLM 4.7 FlashX · comparative prompt · alternative
What the models said about Keycloak
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Four of four in this category shown.
“High Operational Burden: Open-source platforms like Keycloak are feature-complete... you assume 100% of the responsibility for hosting” Gemini 3.5 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“Even popular tools like Keycloak (which has seen rising popularity) require significant engineering effort to maintain.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“FusionAuth and Keycloak stand out because they offer free self-hosted options with no per-user fees” Claude Haiku 4.5 · budget prompt · first choice
“Lowest cash spend, higher engineering effort: Keycloak” GPT-5.4 mini · budget prompt · first choice
Also compared
Auth0 vs ClerkAuth0 vs KeycloakWorkOS AuthKit vs ClerkWorkOS AuthKit vs KeycloakFrontegg vs ClerkFrontegg vs KeycloakKinde vs ClerkKinde vs KeycloakFusionAuth vs ClerkFusionAuth vs KeycloakClerk vs Firebase AuthenticationKeycloak vs Firebase AuthenticationAll twenty-eight head-to-head pages and the full CIAM standing
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.